Our government spies on us and initiates force against us, indiscriminately, regardless of whether we’ve been “naughty” (i.e., violated someone’s rights). We’ll discuss Snowden’s Christmas message, Obamacare as “Christmas treat” and much more. Check program notes, below, for links to all the stories, etc., we plan to discuss, then join in live, either by phone or in the chatroom.

Thanks for another great show Amy and Bosch. As you both demonstrated, it’s difficult, if not impossible to find truly good news from 2013. Examples of things that weren’t as bad as they could have been or negatives that were avoided just don’t do it for me.

I have yet to think of any concrete examples of good news of any real value for American citizens, but I think there are some individuals who should be celebrated for particular actions they took this year, e.g., Snowden’s NSA revelations and Ted Cruz’s principled stand against Obamacare.

Personally, however, 2013 is the year I read my first Ayn Rand novel and had my philosophical “awakening.” This, of course, led to my introduction to Objectivism, an insatiable quest for knowledge, and your show – among many other positive things. Thanks to this I now have a principled, philosophically correct approach to discovering, perceiving, and conceptualizing reality.

I am only one more person learning and advocating Ayn Rand’s ideas, and I might not make much of a difference in the overall big picture. But how many more individuals had a similar experience this year? I’d say that is definitely a positive toward the goal of changing the prevailing philosophy.

The NSA’s TAO hacking unit is considered to be the intelligence agency’s top secret weapon. It maintains its own covert network, infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts shipping deliveries to plant back doors in electronics ordered by those it is targeting.
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Take, for example, when they intercept shipping deliveries. If a target person, agency or company orders a new computer or related accessories, for example, TAO can divert the shipping delivery to its own secret workshops. The NSA calls this method interdiction. At these so-called “load stations,” agents carefully open the package in order to load malware onto the electronics, or even install hardware components that can provide backdoor access for the intelligence agencies. All subsequent steps can then be conducted from the comfort of a remote computer.

These minor disruptions in the parcel shipping business rank among the “most productive operations” conducted by the NSA hackers, one top secret document relates in enthusiastic terms. This method, the presentation continues, allows TAO to obtain access to networks “around the world.”